


My love still lies there buried

by mostladylikeladythateverladied



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Declarations Of Love, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt No Comfort, Implied Sexual Content, M/M, Reincarnation, Reunions, Suicide, it is both due to reincarnation shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-23
Updated: 2021-01-23
Packaged: 2021-03-14 19:20:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28925709
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mostladylikeladythateverladied/pseuds/mostladylikeladythateverladied
Summary: Hange lets Levi rest.Erwin and Levi find each other again.
Relationships: Levi & Hange Zoë, Levi/Erwin Smith
Comments: 9
Kudos: 137





	My love still lies there buried

A foreign shore behind me and a hundred more to go,

On stormy seas and starless nights, caught on a cold wind’s blow.

So many years have put my battered bow up to the test,

A long-forgotten promise coming home at last to rest.

For even in this darkness something calls for me to find,

And cities may all turn to ash, and stone walls fall to time,

My love still lies there buried under silent ice in sleep,

A grave left unattended by the word I couldn’t keep.

\- "The Word I Couldn't Keep" Billie Wildrick

* * *

Hange found him sitting on the edge of the rooftop, looking out on the horizon. Night had fallen over the battlefield, casting the scattered bodies and bloodied dirt in cold moonlight. He was still and quiet and despairing.

He'd been in despair for years now. Still and quiet in his endless mourning. Nothing ever managed to pull him out of his deep well of sorrow over losing Erwin. Not Hange, not his troops, and not killing the Beast Titan.

Fulfilling Erwin's final order wasn't a release or a joy to him. It was a duty – the only duty that mattered to him anymore. It was done, and now he had nothing.

Hange sat down beside him and didn't know what to say.

“I'm tired,” Levi whispered.

“I know, it's been a long day. Hell of a fight,” Hange commented like they didn't know what he meant.

“Yeah, it's done.” He looked to his right where the Beast Titan's, and Zeke's, corpses had been abandoned to rot. There wasn't much left by now. “I did it, Erwin,” he murmured so quietly Hange almost didn't hear him.

“He'd be proud of you,” Hange offered.

“Don't tell me shit I already know,” Levi snapped. Hange grinned sheepishly. Of course Levi knew that. There was nothing of Erwin that Levi didn't know, respect, and love.

“He's not here to say it. I figured somebody should,” they explained. They weren't expecting gratitude or a smile, but Levi didn't glare at Hange or even so much as look at them. He just stared out into the distance, nothing showing on his face.

He was empty. Entirely, completely empty.

“We never...” Levi began, then stopped. Hange feared if they said anything it would frighten him into silence, so they remained quiet and patient.

“We never said how we felt,” Levi began again. “We both knew and we never said it.”

Hange still said nothing. They got the feeling Levi wasn't talking to them anyway, or at least didn't need their input. He was saying what needed to be said and Hange could only bear witness.

“It was some horse shit, misguided attempt at making things easier. One of us could die at any moment. Not saying it didn't make it less true. Didn't make it hurt less.” Levi's voice was even, flat, blank. “It just meant we never got to live the life we wanted while we were both alive. It wasn't a mercy. It was cruel. I thought being with him, following his orders, being loyal to him would be enough. It wasn't. _It fucking wasn't_.”

The first trace of emotion leaked into Levi's voice, making Hange wish he'd remained flat the whole way through. The _sadness_ that cracked his voice, tore through his throat so harshly it was a surprise he didn't spit blood, cut Hange like a knife.

This was what Levi had been bearing since Erwin died. Stoically, silently, and carrying on his duty while his heart rotted in his chest. Levi carried a deep, abiding devotion to Erwin – all of it was drained from him with Erwin's loss and left behind a cavernous space that no one else could occupy. It filled up with grief and finally it was spilling over.

It spoke to how deep that cavern was when it took this long for it to flood.

His Ackerman bloodline was both a blessing and a curse. It made him capable of a love so bottomless, so endless it went beyond what any normal person could expect to understand. It overwhelmed his soul and changed his body, made it stronger and faster so his physical self could match that love's strength.

It also left his hands cold and empty when that love was lost to him.

Erwin's final order was fulfilled. He was truly lost to Levi now.

“I'm tired,” Levi repeated. “I want to rest.”

He wasn't asking for permission. There was only one person's permission he ever wanted or needed and they had no words left for Levi.

Hange closed their eye so their tears wouldn't spill. Their heart ached, and surely whatever pain Hange felt was a grain of sand in comparison to the mountain of sorrow Levi had carried for years. It felt like a betrayal to feel it at all. What right did Hange have to feel sadness when the man next to them had suffered so completely for so very long?

Levi let Erwin go, allowed him to rest, despite the terrible pain it caused him when he was left behind. Made to go on living and suffering all the while. The only dignity left for them in this world was getting to choose when and how to die, and Levi was strong enough to let Erwin go when he made his choice.

Hange had to do the same. They loved Levi, too, though not in the same way Erwin did.

“Okay, Levi. You can rest.”

They stood, turned, and walked away towards where the others were camped. They heard Levi unhook his gear, letting the heavy metal and leather fall from his body and land on the concrete rooftop. It fell with the heavy clang of all his responsibilities and burdens falling from his shoulders. Heard the few steps Levi took forward, then heard nothing else.

They blinked back the tears and greeted the others with a smile.

The following morning, Hange found Levi's corpse alongside the others, crumpled and broken on the ground. For the first time in their eyes, he looked very small.

* * *

Levi tapped his pen against the desk, watched his classmates file into the classroom, some of them alone and some of them in pairs or groups. They chattered mindlessly about who was crushing on who and who got dumped over the weekend. They found their seats, none of which were near Levi. Which is exactly how he liked it.

Their professor arrived soon after, and before he displayed today's PowerPoint and got into the lecture, he announced, “Good news, people! We're getting a teaching aid.”

Happy sighs echoed through the lecture hall. The class had too many students for their professor to handle alone. Some of them really needed the office hours that always seemed to be taken up by someone else.

The doors opened and a tall figure stepped inside. Levi's breath caught.

“He just returned from an exchange program in Germany and won't be starting classes until next semester, so he has plenty of free time to help the class out! Give Erwin a warm welcome.”

Cheerful greetings sounded out. Levi didn't hear any of it. More than thirty years worth of memories were slamming into him with the force of a speeding truck and it took every ounce of the strength inside him to keep from crying. From screaming for Erwin to look at him and _love him_ again.

He'd lived 22 years of a mostly normal, peaceful life with no knowledge of Titans or the Survey Corp or anything about some other life he lived in some other world. He wasn't prepared for everything he was reliving in a few short moments. The pain he'd suffered, so great and so complete he couldn't bear living with it once his final hold on the man he loved was gone, made him want to vomit. Then he remembered the love – a fathomless devotion for the man who just walked back into his life.

A new life without Titans to fight or heroic sacrifices to be made on the field of battle. The suffering was over leaving just the _love love love_ -

“Thank you, I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you.” Erwin smiled and Levi's heart hammered in his chest.

He remembered the regret, too. He wouldn't make the same mistake again.

He waited until all of his classmates had left the lecture hall. As a stroke of luck, or perhaps fate was finally favoring Levi, the professor left before Erwin did. The new teaching aid stayed behind to catch up on old lecture notes and was seated at the professor's desk when Levi walked in.

Erwin looked up. Levi saw it in his eyes when he began to remember as well. In the span of a few seconds, an entire lifetime was relived.

“ _Levi_ ,” Erwin gasped. He stood and rushed to Levi, lifted him into his arms, and kissed him with more fervor and passion than a single lifetime could contain. “Levi!” he said again like the name alone gave him more joy than anything ever had before.

“I love you,” Levi said between kisses. He would not waste a moment of this new life not loving Erwin. And he must have felt the same because he spoke over Levi with, “I love you, Levi. I love you.”

“I love you, I love you, I love you,” Levi repeated again and again – they were the only words that mattered to him. The only feeling that mattered was Erwin's hands on his body, touching him, exploring him in a way he never did before. He bunched Levi's shirt up so he could feel his soft, unscarred skin. This life had been far kinder to Levi than the last one.

They couldn't go further than that due to where they were, but soon, as soon as possible, they would make love and never know when to stop because they had two lifetime's worth of desire to fulfill.

“I love you, I'm sorry I left you alone-”

“No, shut the fuck up,” Levi said firmly. He pulled back and scowled. He didn't want to stop kissing Erwin but this was important. Erwin smiled like being sworn at was _delightful_. “No apologies. No regrets. Fuck all of it, just...just love me.”

“I can do that.” Erwin stole another kiss. Not stole – he could take anything he wanted of Levi. “I can do that for the rest of this life, and any others we get.”

**Author's Note:**

> My first contribution to the fandom, I hope you liked it! I caught up on the series and now I have Eruri brain worms real bad. And sadness. A lot of sadness.


End file.
